Translated by Qwen.
Father Augustus Bisping: Commentary on John 14:1–31
II. On Jesus' Departure to the Father and the Sending of the Paraclete (14:1–31)
Jn 14:1
The preceding announcement of His imminent departure and of the denial by one from their midst had to deeply shake the disciples. The Savior therefore seeks to encourage them to trust in God and in Himself through the hope of being reunited with Him at the Father's side. He calls out to them consolingly: "Let not your heart be dismayed! Trust in God, trust also in me!" Their old trust in God they should, as it were, refresh anew through their trust in Jesus as their Mediator and Advocate with God, through whose reconciliation—soon to be completed—they are first to be initiated into the truly close relationship of complete childlike confidence toward God.
We therefore take πιστεύειν in the sense of "to trust," and πιστεύετε in both instances as imperative, with most interpreters. The Vulgate takes πιστεύειν in the sense of "to believe," and the first πιστεύετε as indicative, the second as imperative: "You do believe in God; believe therefore also in me." According to this rendering, the thought expressed in the words is that with true faith in God, faith in the Redeemer is simultaneously given; that faith in Christ is only an unfolding of the general belief in God. However, the disciples already possessed faith, and the imperative rendering seems most appropriate because of the preceding imperative.
Before μὴ ταρασσέσθω, some witnesses have inserted for connection: καὶ εἶπεν τοῖς μαθηταῖς αὐτοῦ ("and He said to His disciples").
Jn 14:2–3
To this exhortation to trust is joined the revelation of the prospect of a soon reunion: "In my Father's house are many mansions." The disciples should therefore be convinced that God's heaven, which is here called in a childlike, figurative manner His "Father's house," is large enough to receive all who belong to Jesus; He need only go before them as Forerunner to prepare a dwelling for them.
In the words "but if not, I would have told you" lies a childlike, naive affirmation of the truth: "It is certainly so; you may believe me; I would have told you if it were not so." This affirmation is, however, only added incidentally. What follows—"For I go to prepare a place for you"—gives the factual proof of the existence of many mansions in His Father's house, but at the same time also contains the thought that Jesus' departure is the condition under which the disciples can follow.
We read with Lachmann and Tischendorf ὅτι πορεύομαι ("that I go") according to preponderant witnesses, and place a period after εἶπον ἂν ὑμῖν ("I would have told you"). The omission of ὅτι in several manuscripts and in the Textus Receptus has caused many to refer εἶπον ἂν ὑμῖν to what follows: "If it were not so, I would have said to you: I go to prepare a place for you, etc." However, verse 3 speaks against this rendering, according to which Jesus actually goes and prepares a place. It is entirely arbitrary, with some, to take the words as a question and refer them to an earlier saying of the Lord not preserved in the Gospel: "But if not, would I perhaps have said to you: I go to prepare a place for you?"
Jn 14:3: "And when I shall have gone and prepared a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also."
Christ has prepared a place for His own with the heavenly Father through His atoning death, by which the dividing wall between heaven and earth has been broken down; through His resurrection, in which He conquered the last enemy of the human race, death; and through His ascension, in consequence of which He has seated Himself at the right hand of the glory of His Father.
The πάλιν ἔρχομαι ("I will come again") is first to be understood of the invisible, inner return of Christ in the Holy Spirit (cf. Jn 14:18ff.; Jn 16:22ff.), in whom all communion with Him for time and eternity is encompassed. When Christ has returned to us in the Holy Spirit, then according to the inner, hidden life we are already here below with Him, manifestly in glory (Colossians 3:1ff.); then He transforms our lowly body (Philippians 3:21) and transfers us into the heavenly state. This coming again of Christ finds its solemn conclusion in His Parousia on the last day, when He will come visibly to take all His own to Himself and lead them into the glory of God.
We can therefore say quite generally: The πάλιν ἔρχομαι encompasses the entire work of Christ for the salvation of His own, beginning with His resurrection and completed with His Parousia. The Lord speaks here to the apostles as representatives of the whole Church. πρὸς ἐμαυτόν ("to myself") stands with emphasis: only in union with the Head do the members find their rest.
Jn 14:4–5
In verse 4, with Tischendorf, according to sufficient witnesses, we should read: καὶ ὅπου ἐγὼ ὑπάγω οἴδατε τὴν ὁδόν ("And where I go, you know the way"), according to which ὅπου ἐγὼ ὑπάγω is placed first anacoluthically and with rhetorical emphasis. The Textus Recepta: καὶ ὅπου ἐγὼ ὑπάγω οἴδατε καὶ τὴν ὁδὸν οἴδατε ("And where I go, you know, and you know the way"), is to be regarded as an explanatory expansion, against which, however, verse 5 speaks.
"And where I go—you know the way." The Lord speaks of the departure to the Father, whither His own should follow Him. The only way for them thither is, according to verse 6, Himself. To this way He had already often directed them in all those sayings in which He presented Himself as organ, as revelation of the Father, and demanded faith in Him as the indispensable condition of salvation (e.g., 10:36ff.; 6:29); the disciples therefore already knew the way to the Father, or at least could have known it. Well says Augustine: "The disciples knew, but they knew not that they knew."
Some interpreters (Jansenius and others) wrongly suppose that Jesus understands by ὁδόν the way of suffering and death which He Himself was about to tread. This conflicts with verses 6ff.
Jn 14:5 should be read: καὶ πῶς οἴδαμεν τὴν ὁδόν ("and how do we know the way?") instead of καὶ πῶς δυνάμεθα τὴν ὁδὸν εἰδέναι of the Textus Recepta. The latter reading clearly reveals itself as an interpretation, admittedly correct in sense.
"Thomas said to him: Lord, we do not know where you are going, and how can we know the way?" Thus, in reply to the Lord's words that they knew the way to the place whither He was now betaking Himself, Thomas, in his sober and skeptical understanding—which expresses itself everywhere in the character of this apostle (cf. 11:16; 20:25)—responds that they did not know the place to which He was going; therefore they could not know the way thither either.
Jn 14:6
To Thomas's question, "How can we know the way?" Jesus answers with the important declaration: "I, I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me."
Christ is not merely the Guide who shows us the way to our true destiny through His teaching and example, but He is this way Himself, and indeed because He is the sole Mediator between God and humanity. If man wishes to attain his proper goal, he must enter into Christ believingly and lovingly; only through Him does he come to the Father. Therefore Jesus above (10:7) called Himself the Door, just as He here calls Himself the Way. And insofar as Christ as Mediator continues Himself in the race only through the Church, this Church alone is also the sole way on which man attains his salvation—i.e., only the Church is alone saving, and outside the Church salvation is to be found as little as outside Christ.
But Christ is not only the way to the goal; He is the goal and the fulfillment Himself, insofar as He is the truth and the life κατ᾿ ἐξοχήν ("par excellence"). As the eternal Logos, as the Principle of all revelation of God—both the inner self-revelation and the revelation of God outwardly—He is the truth and the life in Himself, and therefore also the sole source of all truth and all true life for us. Without Christ, man is in spiritual darkness and livingly dead.
The three predicates ὁδός, ἀλήθεια, and ζωή stand coordinated beside one another; the interpretations: "ego sum via veritatis et vitae" ("I am the way of truth and of life"—Maldonatus), or: "ego sum vera via vitae" ("I am the true way of life"—Augustine) are arbitrary and weaken the thought.
Jn 14:7
"If you had known me, you would have known my Father also." The emphasis lies in the antecedent clause on ἐγνώκειτε ("you had known"), in the consequent on τὸν πατέρα μου ("my Father"). Christ and the Father are One according to their Godhead (cf. 10:30). Whoever therefore has truly recognized the divine in Christ has thereby also recognized the Father.
In the following καὶ ἀπ᾿ ἄρτι κ.τ.λ. ("and from now on..."), the καί (which is lacking in some witnesses) joins an adversative clause: "and (i.e., nevertheless, cf. Jn 7:28) from now on (namely, when I am glorified) you know Him and have seen Him." Here again, as in 13:31, there is a prolepsis: The Lord thinks of His glorification as already completed, and thus places the consequence of His glorification—namely, the knowledge of His Father—into the present and past.
Jn 14:8–9
Philip does not yet grasp the Lord's words. Understanding indeed that Jesus is speaking of His heavenly Father, he desires a visible appearance of the same, a theophany, such as Moses once fervently entreated for himself (Exodus 33:18), and such as the prophets of the Old Covenant (e.g., Elijah) beheld God. He says: "Lord, show (let appear) to us the Father, and it suffices us"—i.e., and with that we are content.
Jn 14:9. Wondering at these words of Philip, and at the same time with sorrow, the Lord exclaims: "Have I been with you for so long a time, and you have not known me, Philip! He who has seen me has seen the Father; and how can you say: Show us the Father?"
He wishes to say: After such long intercourse with me, have you then not yet truly known me at all! Have you not recognized that I am One with the Father according to essence! That therefore he who with the eye of faith beholds the divine in me also beholds the Father, and thus can no longer desire a sensible appearance of the Father. Rightly was this passage adduced by the Fathers against the Arians as proof of the essential unity of the Son with the Father.
Instead of ἔγνωκας ("you have known"), the Vulgate has the plural—cognovistis ("you have known" [plural]); it therefore joins Φίλιππε ("Philip") to what follows.
Jn 14:10–11
In the words: "Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me?" it is clearly expressed, just as in the preceding: "he who has seen me has seen the Father," that the Lord here speaks not of a merely moral, but of an essential union. Nor are the two halves of the thought—"I in the Father" and "the Father in me"—by any means merely tautological repetitions; rather, they express on the one hand the constant immanence, on the other hand the intimate, essential mutual interaction which exists between the Father and the Son. The Father beholds and loves Himself in the Son, His image, the radiance of His glory (Hebrews 1:3), just as the Son knows Himself in the Father as His origin. Cf. 10:38.
From this essential unity the Lord then infers that all that He speaks and does are words and works of the heavenly Father: "The words which I speak to you, I do not speak from myself." And the proof that He does not speak from Himself, not from His own authority, lies in His works: "And the Father, who remains in me, Himself does the works." The particle δέ here is not adversative, but continuative.
Jn 14:11. Exhortation to all to believe: "Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me; but if not, believe because of the works themselves!"
The Vulgate has: "Non creditis, quia ego in Patre et Pater in me est? Alioqui propter opera ipsa credite." It has therefore read οὐ πιστεύετε ("do you not believe?"), which some Greek manuscripts also have. Thus, if they will not believe Him on His word that He is in the Father and the Father in Him, they should believe Him because of the works—i.e., because of His miracles, in which a divine power is revealed. Cf. Jn 5:36; Jn 7:16f.; Jn 10:25.
Jn 14:12–14
From the exhortation to believe because of His miracles, Jesus now passes over to the miracle-working of the disciples through faith. For in these miracles, which the disciples performed in His name after His departure, lay a still greater power of conviction, a still stronger encouragement to faithfulness.
"Amen, amen, I say to you: he who believes in me—the works that I do, he also will do, and (καί is intensive) greater than these he will do."
The μείζονα τούτων scil. ἃ ἐγὼ ποιῶ ("greater than these, namely, which I do") might appear striking; but all that is striking disappears if we understand by μείζονα ἔργα not miracles in the narrower sense, but take the expression generally of the effects and successes of the later apostolic activity. In that the apostles converted thousands in one day, spread the divine kingdom founded by Christ far beyond the borders of Palestine, procured victory for the Gospel over Judaism and heathenism, etc., they in fact wrought greater, more conspicuous miracles than the Lord Himself. The Acts of the Apostles gives the best commentary on these words. Cf. also Matthew 21:21.
This greater activity of the disciples Jesus now brings into causal connection on the one hand with His departure to the Father, on the other hand with the prayer of the disciples, as He continues: "For I go to the Father, and whatever you shall ask in my name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son."
Jn 14:13 is to be separated from Jn 14:12 only by a comma, so that καὶ ὅ, τι ἄν κ.τ.λ. ("and whatever...") still depends on ὅτι ("because"). Only after the redemption was accomplished, after Christ as God-man was exalted to the right hand of the Father and as such took part in the divine governance of the world, could He equip His own with power from on high and thereby enable them to spread His kingdom and to perform greater works than He Himself had done.
To the giving activity on Christ's part there must correspond the receiving activity on the part of the disciples; and this receiving activity is prayer. For true prayer is an opening of oneself, a breathing of the soul, whereby man draws into himself the heavenly air of grace. But to pray in the "name of Christ" means to pray in His sense and spirit, as He has taught us; to pray in the faith and confidence that only through Him, only in consideration of His merits, is granted to us what we pray for; and finally, to pray with complete submission to the will of the heavenly Father. Cf. Jn 15:16; Jn 16:23.
Note also the universality of the promise: "whatever you shall ask." If we always prayed truly in the name of Jesus, we would also always obtain what we ask. The ultimate purpose of the answering of prayer through Christ is the glorification of the Father in the Son; hence ἵνα δοξασθῇ κ.τ.λ. ("that... may be glorified"). Cf. Jn 13:31; Romans 16:25ff.; Philippians 2:11.
Jn 14:14: "If you ask anything in my name, I will do it." Here the Lord repeats the same thought once more, but with special emphasis that He is the acting subject (ἐγώ).
CONTINUE
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